


playing house

by alamorn



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Domestic Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:56:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9293294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: In the end, it’s just another day. And a kiss is just a kiss.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written based on a softer world prompt list i saw going around tumblr, specifically, "I think you are beautiful and I would like to kiss you. I can think up some clever lines, if you'd prefer. But I wanted to say that, first."

In the end, it’s just another day. Joan is reading quietly, and the light hits her face, gilds her hair, and she is no more radiant than normal, but she is normally quite radiant. He has loved her for a long time now, and has told her that in so many words, and it would be a lie to say he has never thought about her tying him up and destroying him and putting him back together, but…

The words do not escape him. He thinks them over carefully, considers and discards a dozen alternatives, and says, “I think you are beautiful and I would like to kiss you.” When she looks up, half startled, half annoyed, he continues, “I can think up some clever lines, if you’d prefer. But I wanted to say that, first.”

She puts her book down, slotting the bookmark in carefully. It’s something light, a book club book. She and Marcus and Alfredo and Ms. Hudson get together once a month and discuss. It’s unbelievably boring, and, as Joan explained, not about the book. If he wants to spend time with people, he’ll do that, no excuses necessary.

“Where is this coming from?” she asks, cutting through his increasingly frantic thoughts.

“Well, clever lines never seem to be about you or me, and I wanted to make sure you knew I was talking to you, specifically.”

“Don’t be cute,” she says, face carefully blank. “Answer the question.”

He has to stand, yearning for something to fidget with. “You know I respect you greatly.”

She favors him with a grim little smile.

“And that I value your company over anyone else you could name.”

“You might have said something along those lines,” she concedes.

“Well. I am, as you know, a man in touch with my sexual needs. What I need from you is not sexual, but. You are very beautiful, and I would like to kiss you.”

She blinks slowly, but he can read her expression now. Amusement is overtaking her face, not cruel laughter, not mocking him. It’s flavored with fondness, so when she beckons him with a long fingered hand he goes eagerly and sinks to his knees in front of her chair.

Obligingly, she spreads her knees so he can shuffle closer. She’s wearing soft flannel pants, and the cuffs brush his wrists as he clenches his hands on his knees.

Her hand slides against his jaw, and he catalogues her old callouses, the scar on the pad of her pointer finger, until her hand slides into his hair and she tightens it into a fist, pulling his head back with a shock of not quite pain. His thoughts quiet, a little. He is focusing on her face now, her dark eyes, her soft lips, the sharp line of her jaw.

She licks her lips and he tracks the motion. “This won’t make you listen to me more, will it?”

He lets out a shuddering breath. “Not unless you want to bring kink out into the world with us. I am not exactly _opposed_ but —“ She gives a sharp tug and uses his hair to angle his head as she wants it.

Joan kisses like she does everything: competently, and with a kind of subdued passion. Her lips are firm — and when her tongue touches his he stops cataloguing the experience entirely. Joan always knows what she is doing, and that is as true with his body as with autopsy, as with detection, as with the way she flicks out a baton and lays waste.

She lays waste to him, but kindly, and when she is done, she looks him over and says, “Satisfied?”

“Yes,” he breathes out. His hand is tight around her ankle. He didn’t notice when he grabbed it. “As always.”

**Author's Note:**

> My ideal endgame for these two is life partners that kiss sometimes, and Joan occasionally doms him by request, but they never really have sex. That's not what they need from each other. Anyway, when I saw that prompt I had to write this.


End file.
